Every New Year we start the year with good intentions. That is a noble aspiration, however, it seems that Internet criminals, "scaminals," have intentions of their own.
In the first month of the year I received some 20 mails from people all over the world asking for information concerning winning an Internet lottery. None of them had purchased a ticket, but all of them were told that they'd won a big prize and that they could claim the prize only after collecting some 400 euro. And, of course, they also needed to give a bank account number. Where else should they transfer the multi-million-euro prize?
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"From the information we have at this moment, it seems that it is a criminal organization in Nigeria, using the trick of advance payment."
-Jose Brommer
De Lotto
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All of the scams I received were in one way or another linked directly to the Netherlands. That is not so strange because I have published on the Internet quite a few stories on the Dutch lottery landscape, and under all of my articles there is an e-mail address mentioned. So, people very often come to me when they have received a scam related to the Netherlands.
Most of the scams I saw this month had a link to De Lotto, a WLA member based in the Netherlands. In these scams there were mobile telephone numbers and e-mail address mentioned. The e-mail addresses were all bogus ("...lottonl.com" and "...delottonetherlands.net," to name a few), while the correct domain is "...lotto.nl." The postal address given was in Amsterdam, which is most certainly wrong because De Lotto is located in the Hague.
I sent all the scams I received along to the real De Lotto address, and Jose Brommer, a barrister with De Lotto, is working full-time on the case.
"My main tasks are indeed tackling illegal lotteries and staying in close relation with the police authorities," Brommer explained. "Since the beginning of 2001, De Lotto (has received) either by e-mail or phone from all over the world inquiries concerning the trustfulness of lottery companies named "De Lotto Netherlands Sweepstakes Lottery,' 'Werken bij (working at) DeLotto' or 'De Lotto Netherlands.'
"The organization behind those fake companies is sending those scam e-mails as you describe before. They have Web sites, but to get in touch with them via their telephone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses is impossible. One of the Internet addresses was registered by the 'Nigerian Development Bank.' And above that, they use names of other lottery organizations as well. From the information we have at this moment, it seems that it is a criminal organization in Nigeria, using the trick of advance payment."
In trying to stop the internet fraud, Jose Brommer stays in close contact with:
- De Lotto's trade name authority concerning a breach of trade name use;
- the Internet provider concerning the use of www.delottonethetlands.net and www.lottonl.com;
- ICANN, the umbrella organization for registering domain names;
- several police forces, among them the specialists of the "advance fee" frauds;
- the Ministry of Justice;
- the Dutch Consumer Federation;
- the European Lotteries, which has started a special site on scams; and
- telephone companies.
Efforts to eliminate these scams aren't limited to Europe either; the battle is being fought on an international front.
Rosemary L. Koral, investigative/security coordinator of Ernst & Young National, Cleveland, General Counsel's Office, also sent me a lottery scam related to the Netherlands.
Koral wrote to me: "We, as you probably know, are an international firm. On a daily basis, our folks continue to receive the infamous Nigerian scam letters, which are a total nuisance. This has been an on-going issue for several years. They won't give up. However, this lottery scam from the Netherlands is new for us. We, as part of the security/investigative area of the firm, will certainly try to do what we can to stop these intrusions, but if you have any particular knowledge of this scam that you can share with us, or know where/who we could obtain information on this subject, we would definitely pursue those avenues as well."
Additionally, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched a new Web site, www.ftc.gov/crossborder, to help consumers spot, stop and avoid cross-border fraud. It contains information on recent FTC law enforcement actions against cross-border scam artists as well as FTC coordination with law enforcement agencies in other countries to combat this multi-billion-dollar problem.